I’m a new writer to fantasy, but one of the joys of getting to write within that genre is the freedom that comes with creation. To craft magical worlds, to imagine complicated systems, to write of lands that are mysterious and frightening and maybe a little recognizable… it’s been a treat bringing Each of Us A Desert to life.
I never thought I’d be a fantasy author! As I was working on what would be my second YA novel, I asked for advice and guidance from my fantasy-writing peers, and it was my dear friend Zoraida Córdova who gave me a warning to heed that is unique to fantasy authors of color. She said it would only be a matter of time before someone assumed that my fantasy world was not a creation of my own, but a clever “riff” or “expansion” of my culture.
And I’m here to tell y’all, weeks out from my second book being out in the world, that it’s already happening.
The first time, a lovely person who had managed to get an ARC early on sent me a message. I was flattered and blown away by their kind words about Desert, but then was left speechless by the closing remark:
“Thank you so much for teaching me about your culture.”
My culture? I assumed, at first, that this person meant… queer culture? Maybe? There’s a lot of queerness textually and sub-textually within Desert, but then I kept reading, and I was even more puzzled by their gratitude:
“I had never heard of the myth of the cuentistas, and I can’t wait to go look up more about them.”
Well, you’ve never heard of them because… it’s a fantasy book. I made it up. Because… it’s a fantasy book?
I knew what they were getting at though, and it struck right at the heart of what a lot of non-white fantasy writers have to deal with. Readers will consume our work, and often make the mistake that we must be basing these secondary worlds on our “culture.” Within that is something insidious and insulting, since it forms the basis of the assumption: that we don’t have the skills or the imagination to create a world that feels believable and real.
I wish I could say this was the only instance this has happened. Again, I’ll remind you that the book isn’t even out yet.
Courtesy of Tor Teen
So let’s dig into this a little bit more. Each of Us A Desert melds numerous genre tropes together: it’s a post-apocalyptic story told in the aftermath of a great fire that a vengeful god cast down upon Their people. It’s a horror novel, because in this world, the sins you commit and the things you do wrong can manifest as horrific entities known as pesadillas—nightmares made flesh. And it’s also an adventure story, about a teenage girl named Xochitl who is forced into a role within her religion that requires her to never leave home. She is a cuentista, and she is told that she must cleanse her people regularly, lest they receive the wrath of their god all over again.
There are absolutely outside influences that helped me craft this story. For example, I was a teenage convert to Catholicism, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to see how that affected the book. I grew up in a relatively small city near the desert, and much of the book is a metaphorical representation of the loneliness that queer people in rural towns experience. It’s possible that you could tie the whole Catholic thing to being Latinx, but only to an extent, and perhaps only because I am Latinx and was once a Catholic. It’s not a universal thing.
Which is sort of the point I’m leading to. There is no universal Latinx experience within this book, and I feel that those who are looking for stories from “my culture” assume that we are a monolith: that all Latinx people experience the same things. I deal with migration in Desert; not all Latinx people are migrants. I talk about religion, faith, and duty, and there are countless religions spread across Latin America and the diaspora. My book can’t faithfully address all of them. I was certainly inspired by the long history of magical realism when constructing this book, but that movement itself is varied, complicated, and hotly debated.
And yet, the assumption still happens. I’ve been asked if my “people” believe that sins can become real. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a fantasy book. Someone else has asked me what it was like growing up underground. (There is a community within the book that survived the great fire by burrowing into the earth.) I told them I couldn’t speak to that because I just made it up for the book. Another asked if I’d been a religious figure when I was a child, like Xochitl was for her people.
It’s… a fantasy book. Why can’t I have created an interesting story because I’m creative?
There’s also that frustrating aspect of this that, once again, frames whiteness and the stories born out of whiteness as the default. One of the earliest (and most negative) reviews I got for Anger said that the book did not do enough to teach white people what to do about racism. Even in such drastically different stories, this same unfair expectation was there. Why is it that our books have to educate anyone? Why can’t they entertain? Thrill? Delight? Terrify? Why must authors of color bear this sort of burden?
A radical shift must occur for this mindset to be eradicated. We must stop assuming that stories written by non-white people are always about their “culture.” That notion lacks specificity, for one, but it also offers a dim view into what readers consider a default. Why aren’t white writers assumed to be writing their culture when they write fantasy? Readers can accept a fully formed and created world in that context. Any deviation from that norm must therefore not be as good or not be as original.
In the context of Latinx stories, this assumption becomes downright offensive. Latinx is an umbrella term, and it’s one loaded with a complicated history. What does it mean when an outsider says a book is based on a “Latinx culture”? Which one? From what country? State? Region? Are you talking of the dominant culture within that location, or are you referring to those who are usually forgotten or who have been cast aside? More often than not, a person making that reference is never referring to any Afro-Latinx cultures or Indigenous cultures, nor do they have a grasp on how colonization by Spain complicates matters even further. To them, we’re a monolith. We apparently all look the same and speak the same language and have the same feelings on the word Latinx, too. (We don’t.)
I think fiction that illuminates and educates is beautiful. I don’t want to come off as hating that idea, and if my work does teach someone, then I am honored for that. That expectation shouldn’t be applied without thought or context, however. Latinx writers should be able to craft whatever fantastical stories they want without being held to impossible standards. And that’s going to require imagination on the part of those consuming our stories.
MARK OSHIRO is the Hugo-nominated writer of the online Mark Does Stuff universe (Mark Reads and Mark Watches), where they analyze book and TV series. Their debut novel, Anger Is a Gift, was a recipient of the Schneider Family Book Award for 2019. Their lifelong goal is to pet every dog in the world. Please visit them online at www.MarkOshiro.com and follow them on social @MarkDoesStuff
